Above It All, Riverside Church

In September 1958, my family moved from Tuscaloosa, Ala., to the Morningside Gardens Apartments in Manhattan so that my father could do graduate work at Columbia University.

I was enrolled in the fourth grade at Public School 125. An assistant principal, a black man, told us there was no fourth-grade class with a white teacher. My parents assured him that the color of the teacher’s skin didn’t matter to us.

I was placed in Mrs. Valdez’s class. She accepted me, a white girl from the segregated South, with kindness and grace. My desk mate, a girl of Korean descent, spoke broken English. I became her interpreter for Mrs. Valdez. I was befriended by my new classmates.

I was exposed to many new things in New York, none more important than Riverside Church. My younger brother and I walked to Sunday school there, and my class toured the tower and saw the big bells.

After we returned to Tuscaloosa, I received a packet in the mail from Mrs. Valdez. It included letters from my classmates and a color photograph of the class. I was sitting in the middle of the front row, surrounded by a sea of children with brown skin. I could not show it to anyone in Alabama.

My children grew up in Atlanta. There were many African-American students at their school, and 31 nationalities were represented. My daughter, Farley, helped students from Russia and Vietnam learn English and understand the teacher’s instructions. I told my children about my school year in New York and showed them the photograph and the letters.

In November, Farley joined the staff at Riverside Church. She walked to work following the route I took there almost 60 years ago.